EGOTISM in oratory
Old unedited article Tan pest of society is egotists. There are dull and bright, sacred and profane, mane and line egotists. Ills a disease the; lame influenza, falls on all oonstitutiocs. In the disease known to physicians es chorea the patient screetimes buns round and continues to spin viowly on one spot, Is egodem a metaphysical variety of this malady ? The man runs sound ring formed by his own talent, falls into an admiration of it, and loses relation to the worldIt is a tendency in all minds. One of its annoying forms Is a craving for sympathy. The sufferers parade their miseries, tear the lint from their bruises, reveal their indictable crime% that you may pity them. They like sickness, because physical pain will extort some show of interest from the bystanders, as we have seen children who, lading themselves of no amount when grown people come in, will cough till they shake to draw aitentios. —Emumott. In considering the relation to conversation of one's individuality, egotism, which is properly simply the tendency to allude to one's self, should be distinguished from selfconceit and vanity. Self-Conceit denotes a narrow mind and a selfish disposition. It is independent of the opinion of others, attributing censure to envy and indifference to lack of perception. Hence it is not prompted to do kindly offices in order to win good opinion. It feels no gratitude toward those who bestow favors, receiving such attention as a rightful perquisite. It is incapable of sympathy, of love, of any real fellowship. Nothing so haughty and assuming as ignorance where selfconceit bide it set up for infallible. ”Sourn. Vanity is a weakness, but is less selfish. It is dependent upon the opinion of others, and is helpless when neglected. Hence it will cheerfully make sacrifice for others which is likely to secure their good-will. It abounds in gratitude for favors, is quick to sympathize, as eager to love as to be loved, and steadfast in fellowship so long as it feels itself appreciated. Infuse vanity into such a man as Goldsmith and it adds a childlike charm to his character ; it gives a tinge of delightful humor to his writings, and enables his friends to love him the more heartily because they have theright to pay themselves by a little kindly contempt. Make a Byron vain and half his magnificent force of mind will be wasted by silly efforts to attract the notice of his contemporaries by attacking their best feelings and affecting (a superfluous task) vices which he does not possess. The vanity of a Wordsworth enables him to treat with a profound disdain the sneers of Edinburgh reviewers and the dull indifference of the mass of his readers; but it encourages him also to become a literary sloven, to spoil noble thought by grovelling language, and to subside into supine obstructiveness. Conversely the vanity of a Pope makes him suffer unspeakable tortures from the stings of critics compared to whom Jeffrey was a giant, condescend to the meanest artifices to catch the applause of his contemporaries, and hunger and thirst for the food which Wordsworth rejected with contempt. But it also enables him to become within his own limits the most exquisite of artists in words, to increase in skill as he increased in years, and to coin phrases for a distant posterity even out of the most trifling ebullition of passing spite. The vanity of a Milton excites something approaching to awe. The vanity of a Congreve excites our rightful contempt. Vanity seems to be at once the source of the greatest weaknesses and of the greatest achievements. To write a history of vanity would be to write the history of the greatest men of our race, for soldiers and statesmen have been as vain as poets and artists. Chatham was vain ; Wolfe was vain ; Nelson was childishly vain, and the great Napoleon was as vainas the vainest. —Cornhill Magazine. There are some men who need praise as much as flowers need sunshine. You cannot get the best work out of them without it. It is vain to preach to them selfreliance ; they need to be propped and buttressed by others' opinions—to be braced by encouragement and sympathy. "Praise me, Mr. Pope, " said Sir Godfrey Kneller to the poet of Twickenham as the latter sat for his portrait; "you know I can't do as well as I should unless you praise me. " Ridiculous as the request may seem, who doubts that the crooked little poet got a better portrait by complying with it ? And when was praise more efficacious, when did it yield a richer harvest, than when bestowed on the sickly poet himself ? Bulwer, in his essay on "The Efficacy of Praise" in "Cantoninns, " observes that every actor knows how a cold house chills him, and how necessary to the full sustainment of a great part is the thunder of applause. He states that the elder Kean, when he was performing at some theatre in this country, came to the manager when the play was half over and said : "I can't go on the stage again, sir, if the pit keeps its hands in its pockets. Such an audience would extinguish 4Etna. " Upon this the manager told the audience that Mr. Kean, not being accustomed to the severe intelligence of American citizens, mistook their silent attention for courteous disappointment, and that if they did not applaud Mr. Kean as he was accustomed to be applauded they could not see Mr. Kean act as he was accustomed to act. Of course the audience took the hint, and as their fervor rose so rose the genius of the actor, and their applause contributed to the triumphs it rewarded. —MATazws. Reference to One's Self. —So serious a fault is egotism that it is a common precept to avoid all allusion to one's self. "Don't speak of yourself at all, " runs the old proverb, "for if you speak ill of yourself people will believe you and despise you for the fact ; and if you speak well they will disbelieve you and despise you for the lie. " But it is possible to speak of one's self without such boasting as induces disbelief or such detraction as belittles. No subject of conversation is more natural or more interesting. Egotism is to be condemned only when it offends against time and place, as in a history or an epic poem. To censure it in a monody or a sonnet is almost as absurd as to complain of a circle for being round. . . . If I could judge others by myself I should not hesitate to affirm that the most interesting passages in all writings are those in which a writer develops his own feelings. —COLERIDGE. Talk About an Imaginary Self. —The fact is, the egotism which society so justly condemns is not talk about one's real self, but talk about a desirable self —nor about what we really are, but about what we want our friends to think we are. The egotist more or less consciously conceals the real John, and patches up by hints as to his antecedents, his history, his courage, his probity, his tenderness, his regard front others, an ideal John that shall compel admiration. We feel the contrast when in a moment of delight or discouragement lie blunders upon a genuine revelation. So close-locked does every man try to keep the secret of his life that few can resist the temptation to peer in when he opens the lid ; as few have the grace to listen patiently while he describes without opening it the wonderful things he would like to have us believe it contains. It is in this opening the lid that the charm of frankness consists. To speak without reserve of what most persons conceal indicates a consciousness of general purity of life and integrity of purpose that inspires confidence and prompts to similar avowal. Dr. Johnson, paying court to Mrs. Porter, told her plainly that he was of mean extraction, that he had no money, and that one of his uncles had been hanged. She as frankly replied that she had no more money than he, and that though none of her relatives ever had been hanged she had several who ought to be. The desire to please, to shine with a particularly engaging lustre, to draw a fascinating picture of one's self, banishes from conversation all that is sterling and most of what is humorous. As soon as a strong current of mutual admiration begins to flow the human interest triumphs entirely over the intellectual, and the commerce of words, consciously or not, becomes secondary to the commercing of eyes. Each simply waits upon the other to be admired, and the talk dwindles into platitudinous piping. —Cornhill Magazine. Frank Self-revealment Interesting. —It is seldom that we are indifferent to genuine confession, but it is very seldom that we hear it. The egotist does not always eulogize himself directly. He may make you father-confessor and acknowledge to you a fault or habit that is exceedingly dishonorable to him—" he cannot help it ; it is his way. " Perhaps he has resolved at all hazards to take a prominent part in conversation, even though it be at the expense of his character and the comfort of the company. Else he talks of his faults in order to demonstrate his sincerity or some other virtue. "He is none of your dissemblers ; he must tell you all. " Another confesses his crimes on purpose to show us his shrewdness, tact, or courage in committing them, in escaping detection or punishment; or the generosity or highmindedness with which he made amends for them ; thus does he glory in his shame. —HxavEz. Egotism not Eradicated by Silence. —Egotismcannot be overcome or concealed by abstaining from mention of self. The writers of Port Royal were SOdisgusted with the predominance of the pronoun / in contemporary writings that they uniformly shunned it as savoring of selfconceit. But it is not the use of this pronoun that betrays the egotist—it is the feeling that prompts its utterance, as betrayed by the connection and the tone. A false humility, or, in the world's parlance, a false modesty, is as criminal and offensive as pride, for it is that pride in disguise. Pride may not prompt the frequent use of the pronoun ; on the other hand, egotism in the first degree is often perpetrated when there is a careful avoidance of it ; and in general he who makes a show of great pains to keep aloof from a fault does thereby declare that he knows himself to be addicted to it. Some of the vainest ea. of mortals are often heard to say, "without boasting, " "I do not like to praise myself, " "Pardon me for speaking of myself. " Again there are very humble characters who may use this kind of apologetical phrases. Let us beware of words ; nothing is more common than to be misled by them. —HKRVEr. All great men not only know their business, but they usually know that they know it, and are not only right in their main opinions, but they usually know that they are right in them ; only they don't think much of themselves on that account. Arnolfo knows that he can build a good dome at Florence ; Albert Dilrer writes calmly to one who had found fault with his work, "It cannot be better done. " Sir Isaac Newton knows that he has worked out a problem or two that would have puzzled anybody else ; only they do not expect their fellow-men therefore to fall down and worship them. They have a curious undersense of powerlessness, feeling that the greatness is not in them but through them ; that they could not be any other thing than God made them. And they see something divine and God-made in every. other man they meet, and they are endlessly, foolishly, and incredibly merciful. —Rusxm. The difficulty is to be certain that this positiveness of statement has the warrant of genius behind it. Mr. Ruskin himself has used much language that only very great assurance in his own judgment could warrant. Thus in reply to someone who objected to the contempt with which he had spoken of such men as John Stuart Mill and Goldwin Smith, complaining that the disciples of such men are "hurt and made angry when words they do not like are used of their leaders, " he answered : "Well, my dear sir, I solemnly believe that the less they like it the better my work has been done, for you will find if you think deeply of it that the chief of all the curses of this unhappy age is the universal babble of its fools and of the flocks that follow them, rendering the quiet voices of the wise men of all past time inaudible. This is, first, the result of the invention of printing, and of the easy power and extreme pleasure to vain persona of seeing themselves in print. When it took a twelve-month's hard work to make a single volume legible men considered a little the difference between one book and another ; but now when not only anybody can get themselves made legible through any quantity of volumes in a week, but the doing so becomes a means of living to them, and they can fill their stomachs with the foolish foam of their lips, the universal pestilence of falsehood fills the mind of the world as cicadas do olive leaves, and the first necessity of our moral government is to extricate from among the insectile noise the few books and words that are divine. And this has been my main work from my youth up—not caring to speak my own words, but to discern, whether in painting or scripture, what is eternally good and vital, and to strike awny from It pitilessly what is worthless and venomous. So that now, being old and thoroughly practised in this trade, I know either of a picture, a I book, or a speech quite securely, whether it is good or not, as a ebseennonger knows Mean, and I have not the least mind to try to make wise men out of look, or silk punm out of sow( sass; but my one swift business is to brand them of base quality and get them out of the way, and I do not care a cobweb's weight whether I hurt the followers or thew men or not—totally Ignoring them and caring only to get the faun concerning the men themselves fairly rounded and stated for the people whom I have real power to teach. And for qualification of statement there Is neither time nor need. Of coarse there are few writers capable of obtaining any public attention who ha we not some day or other said something rational ; and many of the foobshest of them are the amiablest, and have all Aorta of minor qualities of most recommendable character—propriety of dieBon, suavity of temper, benevolence of dirmosition, wide acquaintance with literature, and what not. But the one thing I have to insert concerning them is that they are men of eternally worthless intellectual quality, who never ought to have spoken a ward in this world, or to have been heard in it out of their family circles; and whom books are merely la much Boating fog-hank, which the tint breath of sound public health and num will blow back into its native ditches forever. " "There are some great men, " says Coleridge, "who actually flatter themselves that they abhor all egotism, and never betray it in their writings or discourse. But watch them narrowly, and in the greater number of cases you will find their thoughts and feelings and mode of expression saturated with the passion of contempt, which ie the concentrated vinegar of egotism. " The same author makes frequent reference to diseased forms of egotism, which seemed to him a fascinating study. For instance : There is one species of egotism which is truly disgusting ; not that which leads us to communicate our feeling to others, but that which would reduce the feelings of others to an identity with our own. —Preface to Poetical Works. For some mighty good sort of people too there is not seldom a sort of solemn saturnine, or, if you will, ursine vanity, that keeps itself alive by sucking the paws of its own self-importance. And as this high sense, or rather sensation, of their own value is for the most part grounded on negative qualities, so they have no better means of preserving the same but by negatives—that is, by not doing or saying anything that might be put down for fond, silly, or nonsensical ; or (to use their own phrase) by never forgetting themselves, which some of their acquaintances are uncharitable enough to think the most worthless object they could be employed in remembering. — The Improvisatore. Silence does not always mark wisdom. I was at dinner, some time ago, in company with a man who listened to me and said nothing for a long time ; but he nodded his head, and I thought him intelligent. At length, toward the end of the dinner, some apple-dumplings were placed on the table, and my man had no sooner seen them than he burst forth with—" Them's the jockeys for me. " I wish Spurzheim could have examined his head. — Table Talk. Query, whether Coleridge would have been so ready to assume the man's intelligence if he had shakenhis head. Talk of One's Self an Introduction to ConversatIon. —Between strangers a frank and easy reference to one's own purposes and tastes is among the easiest approaches to conversation. A lady by mentioning her own movements or arrangements, or by referring to any matter connected with herself and family, if not of too private a nature, gives a lead or opening to her visitor, and affords an opportunity for her to take up the thread of the discourse, and to carry it into wider channels, far beyond the range of the operas, the theatres, or the weather. And in proportion as the conversation diverges into friendly or domestic talk, so do the two ladies become more at ease with each other, gaining in a short time a clear insight into each other's characters and pursuita. —SocietySmall Talk. It is often assumed that reticence commands respect. It is in vain to point out that the silent fool often passes for a man of wit, because the fool who has wit enough to know this and act accordingly is not properly a fool. Were he a fool he would not keep silence. The negroes attribute this wisdom to the chimpanzee, who, they say, is a man, but will not speak lest he should be made to work. Silent people get through the world as well as their talkative neighbors ; Everyone talks for them ; their nod is interpreted where another man would have to make a speech ; and Everyone is willing to excuse them as the sailor excused his parrot, for, if they do not speak, they think the more. Foote, the actor, boasted of his horse that it could stand still faster than some horses could trot ; and the silent man is often enabled, by the value attached to his rare utterances, to say more by his silence than a voluble talker by a string of phrases. —Saturday Review. Is it true that people of reserved disposition are so often misunderstood as they are supposed to be ? It seems to me that certain persons of a frank and impulsive temper are quite as apt to be misinterpreted. The common error of giving reserved persons insufficient credit for feeling, because of their lack of demonstration, is an error into which only the duller sort of observers fall ; but keener-sighted ones often make the opposite mistake, and cherish the belief that the less the display the fuller and deeper its sources must be. This is far front being invariably the truth. , It appears to me that if reserved folk are misconceived it is in a manner favorable to their character and intellect, and whatever opinions may be expressed about them are commonly accompanied with the acknowledgment that they are opinions only, for when a man is not outspoken about himself we may hold what notion we choose about him ; but we cannot help knowing that the notion is something of our own construction, based on no real knowledge. On the other hand, when a person is in the habit of talking freely, is not chary of his opinion and even reveals something of his personal buttes, habits, and feelings, It is natural enough for those who hear hint to suppose themselves capable of estimating him. Yet this very frankness is what misleads ; we are not aware how much is kept back by these apparently communicative people—much that might modify or alter our notions of them. 'They show us a good deal of themselves and we think we know all ; they have a need of venting themselves and begin to speak their thoughts aloud: yet they are sometimes very sensitive to misconception or possible ridicule, and at the slightest suspicion of either hasten to shut the halfopened door of their hearts and withdraw their real selves from our view. An impulsive person is generally impressionable and easily affected by the personality of others; consciously or unconsciously he adapts himself to those he is in contact with, and shows to different persons different sides of himself, sothat if an opinion were asked for, no two of his acquaintance, perhaps, would agree in their impressions Of course heis himself to each and all, but not the whole of himself. Reserve sometimes proceeds from a shy and timid sensitiveness, which makes no appeal for appreciation and sympathy, not daring to run the risk of meeting coldness and rebuff ; but reserved persons, as a rule, enjoy a most comfortable mil-poise and independence of the good or ill opinion of others. It is the persons of frank. impulsive temperament who are the real unfortunates ; they go through a good deal of experience before they learn the wisdom of keeping themselves to themselves, and after learning It are sometimes unlucky enough to forget it at the wrong moment. —dflangle Nottafii SUGGESTIONS. Applying to this subject the general principle of conversation that our first object should be to entertain our companion, not to exalt ourselves, we observe: 1. Reference to One's Self Should Never be Obtruded. —To boast of one's position, connections, achievements, sentiments is to lower by comparison the corresponding possessions of our comrade, and thus to render him uncomfortable. It is for this reason that a vaunting tale so often elicits from the hearer a story yet more marvellous, so that boasting leads to lying. The discomfort is heightened as the thing exulted in is beyond the reach of one's companion. To boast of health in presence of an invalid, of strength to a cripple, of wealth to a pauper, of education to the illiterate, of social distinction to those who get no invitations, is as stupid as it is unkind, for whatever grudging acknowledgment may be granted the fact, is lost in resentment at the lack of consideration. A man with more money than manners paused to talk with a laborer hoeing in his garden. "Well, Pat, " he began, "it's good to be rich, isn't it ?" " Yis, sorr. " "I am rich, very rich, Pat. " " Yis, sorr. " "I own lands, and houses, and bonds, and stocks, and—andand—" " Yis, sorr. " "And what is there, Pat, that I haven't got ?" "Not a spick o' since, sorr ; " and shouldering his hoe Pat marched off in search of a less conceited employer. On the other hand, no reluctance should be shown in coming forward when we can add to the pleasure of others. One must trust to his judgment to determine when he can contribute most to the general enjoyment by remaining in the background and when by taking the lead. A moderate musician, in whom it would be intolerable conceit to play before a cultured audience, may add intensely to the enjoyment of a country farm-house, and would show as much egotism in declining to play in the latter case as hewould in offering to play in the former. There may be times when be knows himself unfitted to appear and yet where the demand that he shall do so is so persistent that it is less egotistical for him to accept and do the best he can, knowing he must fail, than to delay the entertainment of the company while his hostess, injudiciously kind, refuses to yield to his protests. This is one of the instances where one is called upon deliberately to sacriSc:e one's self and to accept the unjust verdict of pretension, because to inflict poor music upon a company for five minutes will annoy them less than to listen for half an hour to one's reason for not trying. In all such cases the man who systematically regards not his own pleasure or reputation, but the gratification of the company, will seldom go astray. If occasionally misunderstood, eventually his unselfishness will be reoognized. Staiements of Fad Should be Rigorously Accurate. —In the popular mind exaggeration is so associated with boasting that in referring to ourselves we should be careful rather to diminish than to enlarge the statements of fact. So alert is the listener to detect exaggeration that he is quite likely some time to compare the fact with our • statement of it. To find that we have claimed less than was really true will gratify him the more because this so seldom happens, while to discover that even in unease. ntial • • particulars we have rounded out the narrative will inspire mistrust of all we have said. • Many persons acquire a gayhabit of merry boasting, or of humorous gasconading—so called from the Gascons, a brave and talented people, who, however, utterly destroy all respect for their real merit by. their habits of vaunting. He who would avoid vanity should have absolutely nothing to do with it—not even to burlesque it. Self is our most insidious foe, and he who boasts in fun will soon find earnest thoughts gliding into the current of his jests. In short, avoid everything which may suggest, however remotely, to those with whom you converse the suspicion that you think of the effect you produce. —Art of Conversation. Recrence to One's Self Should Cease the Moment It Becomee Wearisome. —Thereare persons so ill-bred as to persist in asking questions about one's private affairs and who yet, when one in sheer good nature begins to answer, relapse into dreamy indifference. There are others who by any reference to one's self are instantly stimulated to interrupt by corresponding reminiscences and. confessions. There are frequent occasions when one has been led, wisely or weakly, into selfrevealment, and suddenly discovers that what he says is heard reluctantly. No rule is more imperative than that such reference to one's self should instantly cease, not only out of regard to the wishes of one's companion, but out of respect for one's own dignity. There are no moments in life more precious than when one talks with a tried friend of his life within. But such talk should be only between tried friends, and only in moments of confidence and sympathy. It is not to Harry Foker thatGuy Warrington tells his story, but to Arthur Pendennis, and to Arthur Pendennis only when a crisis in his life makes the story solemn to him. TOPICAL ANALYSIS. Distinguished from self-conceit and vanity, p. 138. Reference to one's self natural and interesting, p. 140. But disagreeable when to an imaginary self, p. 141. Egotism not eradicated by silence, p. 142. Talk of one's self an easy introduction to conversation, p. 145. SUGGESTIONS. Reference to one's self should never be obtruded, p. 146. Statements of fact should be rigidly accurate. p. 148. Reference to one's self should cease as soon as wearisome, p. 148. SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. Do you agree with Coleridge (page 131) ? Do you think the writer in the Atlantic Monthly(page 146) right or wrong in thinking those of frank and impulsive temper as apt to be misunderstood as those of reserved disposition ? What do you think of the following paragraph ? " Moralists are fond of vaguely advising people to be themselves' and of assuring them that all is well so long as a man dares to be hisown true self. The value of this counsel, of course, entirely depends on the sort of self with which each person happens to be endowed. Socrates, who knew a good deal about his own character, asserted that if he had beentrue to himself he would have been one of the greatest scoundrels in an age peculiarly fertile in unredeemed blackguards. "